In
Tehran, a riposte to the Danish cartoons
By Michael Slackman
The New York Times
FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 2006
TEHRAN The title of the show is Holocaust International Cartoon
Contest, or "Holocust," as the show's organizers spelled the word in
promotional material. But the content has little to do with the events
of World War II and Nazi Germany.
There is instead a drawing of a Jew with a very large nose, a nose so
large, in fact, that it obscures his entire head. Across his chest is
the word "Holocaust." Another drawing shows a vampire, wearing a big
Star of David, drinking the blood of Palestinians. A third shows Ariel
Sharon dressed in a Nazi uniform, emblazoned not with swastikas, but
with the Star of David.
The cartoons are among more than 200 on display in the Palestinian
Contemporary Art Museum in central Tehran in a show that opened earlier
this month and is to run until the middle of September. The exhibition
is intended as a response to the cartoons in a Danish newspaper that
lampooned the Prophet Muhammad and were condemned by Muslims as
blasphemous.
The message of the Holocaust-themed show is as old as the fictional
Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and as contemporary as the drawings of
Israeli tanks running over Palestinian men, women and children. Each
picture is hung with great care, carefully matted and placed in a soft
wood frame and illuminated by gentle lighting.
"It is not that we are against a specific religion," said Seyed Massoud
Shojaei, curator of the show, offering a distinction that visitors to
the show are certain to question. "We are against repression by the
Israelis."
In February, the Iranian newspaper Hamshahri said that it would
challenge the West's concepts of freedom of expression by probing one
of its own taboos and challenging accounts of the Holocaust. Iran's
president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was condemned in the West when he
called the Holocaust a myth.
The idea of the contest is to expose what some here see as Western
hypocrisy for condemning Ahmadinejad, while invoking freedom of
expression when it comes to cartoons that many Muslims said were deeply
offensive. The cartoons prompted riots in many countries that left
people dead and several European embassies burned by demonstrators.
Shojaei said that more than 1,000 pictures from 61 countries were
submitted, proving that "there is a new holocaust in Guantánamo
Bay, Abu Ghraib, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan."
The show's provocative theme may attract the attention of the West. But
it has gone little noticed here. Over a three-day period, the gallery
was virtually empty at different times of the day.
A few visitors stopped by, mostly art students who said they had
visited to examine artistic techniques. Many were also happy to take
away a free poster: a photograph showing three military helmets piled
up, the two with swastikas on the crown, a third with the Star of David.
"I came here to study the quality of the work," said Hamid Derikvand,
27, who said he was an art student at the university across the street
from the gallery.
What did he think of the message? "I am not interested in politics," he
said.
Technically, this is not a government show. The cash prizes that will
be awarded to the winners - with a $12,000 top prize - will not come
from the government, Shojaei said.
But the theme of the show fits well with the leadership's efforts to
define itself as confrontational with the West and as a leader in the
challenge to Israel's existence. At the height of the worldwide anger
over the Danish cartoons, there were two protests in Tehran, both
organized by officials.
But while people here say they are sympathetic with Palestinians and
Lebanese, and angry at Israel and the United States, there did not seem
to be a huge rush to see the show.
"Look, these cartoons are the reflections of U.S. and Israelis' deeds,
but wouldn't it have been better if they were put on display in the
U.S. or even in Israel?" said Ali Eezadi, 70, a retired industrial
engineer who visited the gallery Thursday afternoon.
"If this was the case," he said, "certainly there would be a rationale
for it. But having this kind of exhibition in Iran does not draw much
attention. I mean, these things are said, written and expressed in lots
of ways that makes people apathetic."
At first, Shojaei was keen to show visitors around. He was proud to
point to his own drawing, a rabid dog with a Jewish star on its side
and the word Holocaust around its collar.
He said there were three reasons for holding the show: The first was
because, he said, in the West it is considered all right to insult
religion, but impermissible to question the Holocaust.
The second, he said, is to ask why Palestinians must pay the price for
the atrocities of the Holocaust - which he, unlike his president, did
not deny.
And the third, he said, is to draw attention to what he called the
creation of a new Holocaust against Muslims, primarily Palestinians.
"We have been accused of being advocates for neo-Nazis," he said,
speaking in Farsi through a translator. "This is not true."
The show took up three floors of the gallery and Shojaei was on the
third floor, surrounded by images, which at most used the Holocaust as
a subtext: A dove chained to a Star of David. President George W. Bush
seated at a desk swatting doves. A Jew, or Israeli, asleep with three
Arab heads mounted to the wall above his bed.
"We are not saying the Holocaust is a myth," he said. "We are saying
that by this excuse Israelis are repressing other people."
Shojaei was not interested in answering questions or being challenged
on his statements.
"You will need to make an appointment for an interview," he said
abruptly, and left quickly through the front door after an attempt to
engage him.
There were cartoons from other countries on display, too. China. India.
Brazil. Syria. Jordan. Pakistan. An Israeli soldier holding a gas can
that said Holocaust on the side as the soldier poured the fuel into a
military tank.
A razor blade in the ground, like the barrier Israel is building along
the West Bank, with the word Holocaust along the side. Two firemen,
each with a Jewish star on his chest, using Palestinian blood to
extinguish the word Holocaust, which was ablaze.
Shojaei said that none of the images were intended as anti-Jewish, only
anti- Zionist and anti-Israeli - and of course, anti-American and
anti-British. As evidence of that idea, he said that Iranians live
peacefully with the Iranian Jewish community in Iran.
But Morris Motamed, the one Jewish member of Iran's Parliament, said he
did not go to the show because "it was in line with anti-Semitism and
aimed at insulting Jews."
He added: "I felt if I went, I would get insulted and get hurt."